All that glitters

This week I was looking through photos for @BrightestBulb when I literally had a light bulb moment! I came across some pictures of me 12 years ago and thought “Wow, she’s much more glamorous than I am!” I wanted her figure, her face and envied her singular chin and poor excuse for bingo wings.

“You had it before…” a voice chided… “maybe you can have
it again..” I thought of all the ways I could get back to that figure and face
telling myself off for being so lax in the years that have passed.

I carried on through the pictures of one of many holidays at
the same house in France and noticed we were with my brother and his wife and
that had only happened once. I noticed Charlie was not in any of the photos and
then with a sharp slap, I realised that is because he died two months before
that holiday.

We were there to “get away from it all”. No wonder I was so
thin, I was grieving and heartbroken. I went back to the photo to do this post
and now I cannot see glamour at all, I just see really sad eyes.

We all want to be something other than the version we see of
ourselves, but at what cost? Yale students studied happiness in 12,000 people
over 20 years and found on a scale of 1-10 happiness was not scored higher due
to the increasing materialistic aspects of one’s life. Fatter people’s
happiness does not increase when they loose weight and wrinkly people don’t
become happier thanks to botox, we are simply selling ourselves a story.

I constantly moan about my “floob-a-dahs” as my husband affectionately
(!) calls the extra pounds of flesh gained since the picture, and I have
considered ironing out my forehead. But I am happier than I have ever been and
would not swap my life with that 30 something in the photo for all the tea in
China. Happiness has come from a new child who arrived almost a year after
this…no actually 10 months…another lightbulb! It came from flasks of tea and
egg sandwiches, 40th Birthday parties, sportsdays, school plays, crazy
holidays, too much wine and nice nibbles, making people laugh and wetting
myself laughing at others, wrapping presents on Christmas Eve and big hugs from
my family.

If 2 stone is the price I pay for all of that, then so be it…it’s a bloody bargain!